EPO granted Cellectis patent for CRISPR on T-Cells

The European Patent Office has granted Cellectis patent No. EP3004337 for the invention of using RNA-guided endonucleases, such as Cas9 or Cpf1 for the genetic engineering of T-cells, which will be issued in August 2017. Cellectis is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing immunotherapies based on gene-edited CAR T-cells (UCART).

This therapeutic-focused patent follows previous intellectual property that Cellectis has obtained over the two last decades for major gene editing technologies including meganucleases, TALEN®, MegaTAL and CRISPR. Cellectis are so convinced of its strong value for future development of engineered CAR T-cells that it will make this patent available for licensing to companies that are willing to use this technology in T-cells.

“Cellectis is a pioneering gene editing company that has always been at the forefront of all gene editing technologies,” said Dr. André Choulika, Cellectis Chairman & CEO. “We have been the first to explore the potential of CRISPR in its early days in various applications, including therapeutics and food, and these early findings ultimately led to the grant of this new patent. While Cellectis has selected TALEN® as the most robust and adaptable technology for human therapeutic use and for the Company’s product pipeline, our team does sometimes use CRISPR-based nucleases for T-cell research, as it is a less-expensive option and convenient for gene discovery purposes. As such, this patent only further reinforces Cellectis’ leadership position in the gene editing industry, with more patents coming down the pike for the Company in the near future.”

The inventors of this patent are Dr. André Choulika, Chairman & CEO of Cellectis and one of the pioneers in the development of nuclease-based genome editing technologies; Dr. Philippe Duchateau, Cellectis Chief Scientific Officer and seasoned gene editing expert and Dr. Laurent Poirot, Cellectis Head of Early Discovery and expert of gene functions in immune cells.